Eclipse Templates FTW

What do you do when you find yourself writing the same skeleton code in almost every file again and again? Since I switched over to AMD style modules for javascript, using requirejs, following is the common patterns in every file:

define([
        "jquery",
        "underscore",
        "marionette",
        ],
function($, _, Marionette){
 "use strict";
 
 var dashboard = Marionette.CompositeView.extend({
          ....

 });
 
 return dashboard;
 
});

Wouldn't it be great if this scaffolding could be generated with couple of key strokes? So I started digging into Eclipse and out came the templates. Not only most of the perspectives come with pre-built templates, you can define your own.

Defining a new template is simple. Go to Preferences and filter for templates in the left hand sidebar.

Click on New and create a new template:

Remember to give it a name you can easily remember. In order to use the template, you type the name and hit CTRL + Space and the name is replaced by the template. Best part is that when you change a $variable, all instance of it are updated. So in the above, when you replace object by the name of your JS Module, the return statement will also get updated automatically.

Marionette reduces the boilerplate code one has to write but some amount of it in inevitable. For those cases, there are templates. More than the time saving, it is the feeling of escaping the mundane that makes these very useful.